Ed. Note. For a time, I was in international sales and traveled the world meeting like-minded business people from Taiwan to Holland. I never visited India. But one would have to be cut off from reality if you don’t realize the pent-up energy, skill, and sheer brainpower that resides in and from that country. I thought it might interest you, as it did me, to hear from an Indian baby boomer on his thoughts about business and his own career. Ramana Rajgopaul is retired, has a varied business background, and writes a insightful blog called Ramana’s Musings with the kicker text–Wisdom by Hindsight–slightly more clever than my own “Frequently Wrong, Never in Doubt,” but with essentially the same meaning.

What follows is a GUEST POST for WWDS readers.

By Ramana Rajgopaul

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“As you advance in years and wisdom, you will be closer to God.
It will also be the time to transmit your art of living to the young and future generations.
It will be the time of balance-sheets and story-telling.
The greatest wealth of old age is wisdom and its transmission.”
- Robert Muller

I received this quotation from my friend Diane on the same day that I received an invitation from GL Hoffman to write a guest post in his blog. Serendipity perhaps? I do not think so. I leave it to you to decide after you finish reading this post.

I am not very much older than GL, but old enough to be able to look at life from an uninvolved distance as; I am in active retirement, whereas GL from all accounts, intends being actively involved in business for the rest of his life.

My entire working life spanning 44 years was spent in the employment of others, entrepreneurs, some Indian companies with colonial origins, one public sector corporation and one British Multinational corporation. The experience in the large companies is not what I intend writing about, though there were occasions when I had the pleasure of working for very entrepreneurial superiors, not many, but enough to leave pleasant memories. Post retirement, I have also had the great pleasure of mentoring three young entrepreneurs, as part of an initiative of our local chamber of commerce and industry.

I have often been asked as to why I do not start a business and I have always replied that I just do not have the inclination. I suppose that I did not really have to, as I had comfortable employments with regular monthly income which kept me satisfied. If I had any entrepreneurial inclinations that were only to the extent of distance education as it is now called. Studying and acquiring qualifications while working was perhaps the only sensible entrepreneurial thing that I ever did.

So, what am I doing here on a blog that propagates entrepreneurship? I suggested that I write from the employee’s point of view about some of the things that I found to work and some that did not. GL has kindly agreed.

Read any book on Entrepreneurship and something like this will pop up the first thing. “Most startups fail within the first two years of operation and the rest within three”. One can of course, argue about what ‘most’ means here, and let us take it that it should be more than eighty percent of all startups. Then the author will go on to give his own formulae for succeeding as an entrepreneur.

Passion, Knowledge, Commitment, Energy, and Networking are the five traits that are quoted as being prerequisite for success as an entrepreneur. I would add another one and that is the critical one, Delegation.

Why do entrepreneurs employ others? Simple, they need people to do the things that they do not have the time or the inclination to do. Another reason, not very well known, is that the entrepreneur has started the business without adequate homework and finds that he is unable to proceed further without some help, professional or technical.

Having employed others, what do they then do? Mostly, they will not let the employee do what he had been hired to do. Why? I am yet to find the answer and perhaps GL will be able to throw some light on it. Every book, consultant and Guru advises entrepreneurs to delegate and monitor. Do entrepreneurs listen? Ask some entrepreneurs. While that is at one end of the spectrum, there is the other end where the entrepreneur abdicates and lets the employee run the business. I have firsthand experience of both types and I can assure you that neither is the formula for success. I suspect that both happen because the entrepreneur refuses to accept that generating an idea is vastly different from running a business.

On day to day affairs, there is inevitably the “It is my money and risk. Do it my way, or take the highway” attitude that is all pervading. I do not know about the USA, but in India and to a large extent the UK and Europe, this is fairly common. Here too GL may be able to throw some light regarding local conditions. What this does is drive away the very people who are needed to get the business off and running. Why does this happen? Often, this happens because the employee found the entrepreneur’s passion and commitment to the idea appealing and decided to throw his hat in to enjoy the thrill and excitement of a start up at least on a second hand basis. By and large, he comes with background and training from a large company and he finds the atmosphere vastly different from what he expected and was used to. He has no problem finding another larger company, or even his old employer willing to take him on. He moves on, and the entrepreneur blames everything else except himself for the departure. I had two exit interviews with my employers when I was asked as to why I was leaving. I honestly said that I preferred to take the highway. I can assure you that it was not understood at all. The two entrepreneurs were clear that they believed in doing things their way, or the employee should take the highway, but did not expect the employee to choose the second option! That is part of the mental makeup of the entrepreneur I suppose.

Then there is the entrepreneur who comes to the world of business from a very wealthy and business family background. Finances are no problem for him and his family’s influence and backing helps him get whatever he needs without too much problem. Now this is an entrepreneur that all self respecting employees must avoid like the plague, unless the employee really has no choice. This entrepreneur will make it clear that he is the Sun, the Moon and all the Stars in the universe and his employees are to worship the ground that he walks on. He will mouth the latest management jargon and may even have a degree in Business Management from a university in the USA. His sole purpose of starting up the business is to show his family that he is cleverer than his siblings and if the employees do not come up to his expectations, he has got the answer for why his business refuses to take off! He is likely to be the abdicating type though he could often be just a pain in the, you know where!

Then, where do all these success stories come from? In my experience they come from those entrepreneurs, who have what I call Business Acumen. This means that, he has the big idea, but also understands that his idea to translate into a successful business involves understanding broadly how a business works. Having broadly understood that, he goes about getting detailed knowledge of those areas that he can handle and hires experts and experienced employees to handle the rest. He understands that he needs the employees to make his enterprise succeed and treats them with the dignity that they deserve. Inevitably, successful entrepreneurs will have on board a core team of people who have been with them from the start and those core team members will all have this to say about the entrepreneur. That is, that they were treated with dignity, given opportunities to grow with the enterprise and the entrepreneur was all the time connected to them on a constant basis.

So it boils down to those four traits that enables the entrepreneur to exploit the capability of his employees. Connectedness, Constancy in the connectedness, treating the employees with Dignity, and giving them the Opportunity to participate in the excitement of the start up and its success, growth and all that it brings.

Ed. You can comment here and Ramana will be glad to ask any questions about India or himself.

(And watch tomorrow for another guest post by Anita Bruzzese, the USA Today columnist and 45Things, on how and why jobseekers need to be more resourceful.)